The San Remo

Encyclopedia : T : TH : THE : The San Remo

San Remo Apartments

A view from Central Park, San Remo on the right

The San Remo (146 Central Park West) is an upscale co-operative apartment building in New York City, on Central Park West two blocks north of the equally famous Dakota building. It is described by Glen Justice of the New York Times as "a dazzling two-tower building with captivating views of Central Park."^{[#endnote_nyt_desc]} As a housing cooperative, its board has a "reputation for lenient admissions standards" compared to the conservative, old-money boards on the other side of the park.^{[#endnote_gaines]}

Past and present residents of the building include such outspoken personalities as Steven Spielberg, Donna Karan, Steve Jobs, Demi Moore, Dustin Hoffman, U2 frontman Bono, Steve Martin, Bruce Willis, Eddie Cantor, Robert Stigwood, Marshall Brickman, Jackie Leo, Don Hewitt, and Texas natural gas heiress Adelaide de Meni.^{[#endnote_gaines]} Rita Hayworth spent her last years there. Bruce Willis aside, this roster no doubt accounts for the San Remo's fame as a haven for the politically progressive. According to Justice's Times article, the San Remo is the one building whose residents donated the most money to Democrat John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid (as of June 24 of that year).

The building's architect, Emery Roth, took advantage of new zoning regulations to build the first of New York's twin towered apartment blocks, each ten-story tower topped with an English Baroque mansion in the manner of John Vanbrugh and capped with an homage to the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates. The Athenian monument was known to Roth from the reproduction that had featured in the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893. Roth also designed The Beresford and other landmark apartment houses and office blocks in New York. Construction began in 1929, weeks before the market crash initiated the Great Depression. In 1940 both buildings were sold, for $25,000 over the existing mortgages.

Notes

1. ↑  Glen Justice, "A Politician Looking for Funds? Here Are Two Useful Addresses," New York Times, 23 June 2004. [link]
2. ↑  Steven Gaines, The Sky's the Limit: Passion and Property in Manhattan (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005).

Further reading

• Ruttenbaum, Steven. 1986. Mansions In The Clouds : The Skyscraper Palazzi of Emery Roth. (Balsam Press, New York)

External link

• [The San Remo]

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.